Embarrassing mistranslations

Language Learning Chinese
#1

I recently came across the following word:

網拍

It’s not in any dictionary I could find. I translated it as “tennis racket” as the client was nowhere to be reached. Later I found out it means “online auction”. The result was a lot of laughs.

Someone I know recently translated 華府 as “the Chinese government”. Again, not in the dictionary. Seems reasonable, after all, 華 means “China”. But in fact it means “Washington” (i.e. the US government). The result can be a lot more serious in such a case.

Abbreviations such as these can be particularly troublesome in translations.

Are there any other embarrassing Chinese-English mistranslations you’ve committed that you’d like to share?

#2

On the MRT platform, there’s a boxed area where 夜間婦女 ladies of the night can wait for the train in safety.

#3

[quote=“Chris”]網拍

It’s not in any dictionary I could find. I translated it as “tennis racket” as the client was nowhere to be reached. Later I found out it means “online auction”.[/quote]
I thought it meant “webcam exhibitionism”.

#4

Here’s a true story of the potential hazards of trying to just pick up Mandarin. I don’t think I’ve told this before on Forumosa.

Shortly after I arrived, I was at the house of a friend. Her cat was in heat and so quietly yowling a lot. She picked up the cat and stroked it to get it calmed down. While doing so she said, “Guai mao, guai mao.” Then she switched to English and said “Horny cat, horny cat.”

Now, I already knew that mao means cat, so I deduced that guai means horny. (For those of you new to the language, it doesn’t mean that at all. She was just trying to calm the cat by saying the equivalent of “Good cat, good cat.”) As if this weren’t bad enough, some of her friends came over later and started using a nickname for her that I hadn’t heard before: Guai-guai. This gave me something of a wrong impression of her. :blush:

Fortunately, the misunderstanding was cleared up without incident not long thereafter.

#5

[quote=“cranky laowai”]Here’s a true story of the potential hazards of trying to just pick up Mandarin. I don’t think I’ve told this before on Forumosa.

Shortly after I arrived, I was at the house of a friend. Her cat was in heat and so quietly yowling a lot. She picked up the cat and stroked it to get it calmed down. While doing so she said, “Guai mao, guai mao.” Then she switched to English and said “Horny cat, horny cat.”

Now, I already knew that mao means cat, so I deduced that guai means horny. (For those of you new to the language, it doesn’t mean that at all. She was just trying to calm the cat by saying the equivalent of “Good cat, good cat.”) As if this weren’t bad enough, some of her friends came over later and started using a nickname for her that I hadn’t heard before: Guai-guai. This gave me something of a wrong impression of her. :blush:

Fortunately, the misunderstanding was cleared up without incident not long thereafter.[/quote]

So, what prompted her to say “horny” cat in the first place?

#6

Well, as the Chinese say, you need thick skin on your face. You just have to accept that you will really put your foot in it sometimes. I, for example, tried to order glass bo1li ice-cream several times because I mixed it up with mint (bo4he).

But the OP, strictly speaking, is referring to another problem, which is that new words are rapidly being created or absorbed while dictionaries (especially Chinese to English) are rarely updated and increasingly do not reflect Taiwan usage.

This rather horrid state of affairs has been improved by Google. If the OP had had any doubt about the term at all (it’s hard for me to believe that in context that tennis racket could have made sense). he should have immediately googled the term. An eBay link is the first hit, which could have helped get in the right direction. I have no idea how translators did their job BG (Before Google). Including myself.

#7

We cultivated excellent interpersonal relationships with every Chinese waiter within a 40-mile radius, and went out to lunch regulatly. Then, when you hit something you couldn’t understand, you chose a restaurant (based on the academic specialty of the waiter there, which you had figured out previously) and ordered something nice for lunch, and then batted your eyelashes and plunged in with, “Oh, would you mind if I asked you a little question about a Chinese sentence?”

Google is definitely much faster. But not as delicious.

#8

[quote=“Feiren”]
This rather horrid state of affairs has been improved by Google. If the OP had had any doubt about the term at all (it’s hard for me to believe that in context that tennis racket could have made sense). he should have immediately googled the term. An eBay link is the first hit, which could have helped get in the right direction. I have no idea how translators did their job BG (Before Google). Including myself.[/quote]

Actually, I use Google all the time. It’s a godsend in our field. It can be fallible, though, especially if you find numerous references to a term in the source language, but with no suitable target-language translations available.

It just so happened that “tennis racket” made perfect sense given the context of what I was translating. She made money by auctioning things online; I thought she made money by selling tennis rackets. Fortunatlely the particular case I was working on was more like “meatball surgery” - a high degree of faith to the original text was not needed; what was most important was for the general idea to be conveyed and for the result to make sense in English.

#9

[quote=“Chris”][quote=“Feiren”]
This rather horrid state of affairs has been improved by Google. If the OP had had any doubt about the term at all (it’s hard for me to believe that in context that tennis racket could have made sense). he should have immediately googled the term. An eBay link is the first hit, which could have helped get in the right direction. I have no idea how translators did their job BG (Before Google). Including myself.[/quote]

Actually, I use Google all the time. It’s a godsend in our field. It can be fallible, though, especially if you find numerous references to a term in the source language, but with no suitable target-language translations available.
[/quote]

Not sure quite what you mean. Adding a common English word can often help you find translations. But I’m sure you are aware of that.

[quote]
It just so happened that “tennis racket” made perfect sense given the context of what I was translating. She made money by auctioning things online; I thought she made money by selling tennis rackets. [/quote]

Stranger things have happened to me translating, so I don’t doubt it.

Ironlady–thanks for the tips. I’ll see if your technique works as well. Could lead to some interesting results.

#10

[quote=“Feiren”][quote=“Chris”]Actually, I use Google all the time. It’s a godsend in our field. It can be fallible, though, especially if you find numerous references to a term in the source language, but with no suitable target-language translations available.
[/quote]

Not sure quite what you mean. Adding a common English word can often help you find translations. But I’m sure you are aware of that.
[/quote]
Yes indeed. However, it does happen sometimes that there are only a handful of websites with the term I’m looking for, and none of them have any English on them.

#11

Well, another way is to find some Taiwanese friends who can speak good english to explain it to you. True bilingual friends come in handy… haha!

#12

. :notworthy: